stim@fluke.UUCP (Randy Stimpson) (03/26/86)
Charles Hedrick writes: >In reference to Is 7:14, which in the King James says "a virgin shall >conceive". What translations are you looking at? I hope you do not >consider the King James version to represent the state of the art in >Christian scholarship! I would consider the current "official" >Protestant translations to be the Revised Standard Version, which is >sponsored by the National Council of Churches in the USA, the New >English Bible, which is sponsored by a variety of denominations in the >UK, and the Today's English Version (or Good News Bible), which was >done by the American Bible Society. The Today's English Version >probably comes the closest to representing the concensus of the >current scholarly community. (The Revised Standard is now a bit >dated, and its original charter required it to keep the words from the >King James where it could. The New English Bible has a tendency to do >completely off the wall things now and then.) All three of these >translations use "young woman" in place of "virgin" in this case, and >in general try to find the best translation of the OT, independent of >its use in the NT. >There is some ambiguity in the word >translated "virgin" or "young woman" in Is 7:14. So translations done >by fundamentalists will have "virgin" here. A Jew will no doubt >regard this sort of thing as creating bias. (So do I.) Generally >fundamentalist translations are quite clear in declaring their >principles. E.g. the preface to the NIV says "... the translators >were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of >the Bible as God's Word in written form." This clearly announces this >as a fundamentalist translation. (The critical word is >"infallibility". Almost all Christians are committed to the authority >of Scripture in one sense or other.) My understanding is that "virgin" and "young women" are both fair translations of the Hebrew word in question. It is also my understanding that the word is used only to denote a woman who is not married. This does not mean that the woman is necessarily a virgin, nor does it necessarily imply that the woman is young. Context should also be considered when chosing an appropriate word for the translation. In the context king Ahaz was permitted to pettition God for a miraculous sign. Now what would be so miraculous about an young or unmarried woman bearing a child ? Randy Stimpson